Hi, I am new to SQL clustering.

I have a two nodes windows 2003 enterprise server in a cluster with sql 2000
enterprise server installed. Following the SQL installation screen I have
create a virtual server ( for SQL ) and installed the first sql instance
using "default" as the name .So far no problem.
But when I tried to install another instance of SQL it seems like I could
only create a new Virtual server and then name another SQLinstance (
example: Virtual server is " ProdSQL" and instance is INST1) , so it becomes
prodsql\inst1.

My question ( confusion ) is : can I create another instance using the same
Virtual server "prodsql" and install another instance "inst2" so this will
become prodsql\inst2. Is this possible and how to do it ?( Or one cluster
group can have only one virtual server can only have one single instance of
SQL ? )

Any advice appreciated.

George Norman

From BOL ("usually" your best buddy):
Multiple Instances of SQL Server on a Failover Cluster
You can run only one instance of SQL Server on each virtual server of a SQL
Server failover cluster, although you can install up to 16 virtual servers
on a failover cluster. The instance can be either a default instance or a
named instance. The virtual server looks like a single computer to
applications connecting to that instance of SQL Server. When applications
connect to the virtual server, they use the same convention as when
connecting to any instance of SQL Server; they specify the virtual server
name of the cluster and the optional instance name (only needed for named
instances): virtualservername\instancename. For more information about
clustering, see Failover Clustering Architecture.




joe.

"Norman" <GeorgeNorman (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Thanks Joe, that clears things up.

So when Microsoft said Multiple instance it means "multiple Virtual Servers
each with a single SQL instance" .
So does it also means that the Active -Active ( say between two nodes ) is
just running one Virtual server on each of the nodes to spread the work load
( and of course one of the node will control the quorum )?

George

"Joe Yong" <jyongNOSPAM (AT) scalabilityexperts (DOT) com> wrote

Active/active is not really a SQL concept. The bottom line is, SQL
Server 2000 can support up to 16 instances on a single physical node.
If someone was talking about an "active/active" SQL cluster I would
interpret that as meaning there are 1 or more instances running on each
node of a 2-node cluster simultaneously. You are correct in saying that
a virtual server always corresponds with a single SQL instance but
there's nothing from stopping you having many virtual servers on a
single MSCS Windows cluster (up to 16, because they all have to be able
to run on one node if the other one fails).

I prefer to make all my virtual servers named instances (none default)
so you don't end up with something like "VSERVER1" (ie. default
instance) and "VSERVER2\VSERVER2" as SQL instance names - the
inconsistency is too confusing.

The quorum lives on a single disk resource (in the cluster) in a single
cluster group and a cluster group can only be owned by one node at a
time. So, yes, 1 node will control the quorum but it can be any node in
the cluster.

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Norman wrote: